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MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY |
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BOOK IV CHAPTER XIII.
Conduct of Innocent—Council of Lyons—Innocent's Manoeuvres —His Deposal of the Emperor—Consequences—Conduct of Lewis IX—of Germany—of the Sicilies.
As the time prefixed for the meeting of the Ecumenic
Council approached, the Pope appears to have felt, if no misgivings as to
his ultimate success, yet apprehensions of a hard struggle awaiting him,
ere the anticipated triumph should be achieved. Such prescience arose out
of what he everywhere saw, as he looked around him.
Naturally rapacious he might not be; but to promote his
ambitious projects money was wanted; and the heavy demands upon the
coffers of the clergy, to which this need gave birth, alienated a large
part of that body. The right, claimed by Adrian IV, and extended by
Innocent III, of appointing, under certain circumstances, to benefices, became,
in the hands of Innocent IV, the usurpation of almost
all church-patronage whatsoever; and he so used this assumed power, as to
offend clergy and laity alike. Now’, to win or to reward a partisan, now,
to provide for a relation, he obtruded priests, regardless of their fitness
or unfitness, upon sees, abbeys, chapters and rectories; upon the
last, often such as were unacquainted with even the language of the flocks
committed to their charge. With the same recklessness of all the duties
and purposes for which churchmen are trained and endowed, did he, simoniacally,
seek the means of defraying his ambitious schemes for the papacy;
extorting such gratuities from his nominees, from beneficed aliens nearly a
fifth of their income as left him little claim to gratitude.
Thus was the very city, in which Innocent sought
security and independence, alienated. Upon the Chapter of Lyons he had
forced Canons, whom, as illegally appointed, the Chapter refused to admit: and
when the see became vacant, he arbitrarily named a younger brother
of the Earl of Savoy—then not even in Orders—archbishop. And, whilst
the Pope himself thus offended the clergy, the insolence of his train
exasperated the laity of Lyons. Long before midsummer, the general
ill-will was so apparent, that the Pope, deeming a change of residence
advisable, wrote to the Kings of England, France, and Aragon, proposing to
visit their several dominions. The last-named monarch simply declined the
honour in respectful terms, without assigning any reason. Lewis IX, in his
answer, explained that being under the necessity, ere he could offer his
Holiness an asylum, of consulting the Estates of the Kingdom, they had
positively refused to admit him. Finally, Henry III, who—inferior to Lewis
in understanding as in genuine piety—was highly flattered by the idea of
harbouring the Head of the Church, found his wishes similarly opposed by
the magnates of his realm. The English Barons exclaimed: “Already have
Italians and Romans overmuch polluted England with their usury, robbery,
and simony! It needs but the coming of the Pope in person, to complete
the waste and exhaustion of the substance of church and kingdom
Henry, like Lewis, confessed himself unable to receive the honour designed
him. Nor were the Barons content with this rebuff to the Pope. Burning
with indignation at John’s degrading his independent kingdom to vassalage
under the Roman See, they determined at least to prevent the exportation
of the large sums, again wrung by the Legate from the English clergy. For
this purpose, having sedulously and successfully watched the ports,
they next proceeded to frighten away the Legate himself; a person
seemingly, like Beham, of inferior condition, designated only as Martin. A
Knight, one morning abruptly entering his chamber, thus announced the
will of the nation: “ If you and your train do not quit this country
within three days, you will all be cut to pieces. This have the
confederated Baronage and Chivalry resolved.” The terrified Legate hurried to”,
the King, to inquire whether he had sanctioned such a resolution: “By no
means said Henry; “but I can neither curb my nobility, nor compel my
clergy longer to submit to your immoderate extortion.” In momentarily
increasing terrors, Martin now besought a safe conduct with which
to leave the kingdom, and received for answer: “Diabolus te ad
Inferos inducat et perducat.” The boon was, however, granted.
Innocent suspected, not without reason, that for these
refusals he was partly indebted to the representations and remonstrances
of Imperial envoys. He appears, nevertheless, to have been far more incensed
against those who, with inferior pretensions to sovereignty, presumed to
resist his will; being reported to have said: We must compound with the
Emperor; for, when the Dragon is once crushed, or pacified, these petty
serpents will be speedily trampled under foot.” In consonance with this
speech, he now commissioned the Patriarch of Antioch to visit
the Emperor, and renew his former offer of relief from excommunication, as
soon as the Estates of the Church should be evacuated, all the captive
ecclesiastics released, and security given for the due fulfilment of the
remaining conditions. The Emperor still saw very decided objections to
parting with the advantages in his hands, without obtaining, at least,
some actual guarantee for the consequent repeal of his excommunication: but instead
of rejecting the offer, he merely stipulated, that, in requital of
his acceptance, those, who had incurred excommunication by fidelity to him,
should with him be relieved, and that, as the Pope himself had said there
could be no peace unless the Lombards were included therein, the
maintenance of the Treaty of Constance should be assured to him. To
demands so moderate Innocent demurred; and this was the state of the
negotiation, when the appointed Midsummer-day arrived.
The Council, when assembled, comprised the Emperor
Baldwin, the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Aquileia, a
hundred and forty Archbishops and Bishops, besides Abbots, deputies from
cloisters, the neighbouring Earls of Toulouse and Provence, and ambassadors
from most of the States of western Europe. For the whole of Christendom
the number of prelates seemed inconsiderable; but the northern states, even
those belonging to the Roman Church, do not appear to have concerned themselves
about Councils; and attendance from the east was hindered by invasion of
Kharizmians and Mongols, past, present, or imminent, so that the Patriarch
of Antioch and the Bishop of Berytus were the only members of
the Asiatic hierarchy present. Frederic, though he sent an embassy,
headed by Taddeo da Suessa, to defend him against the Pope’s expected
accusations, did not, seemingly, choose that his own prelates should take part
in the transactions of a Council, convoked by his almost
avowed, inveterate enemy. Nor could an Imperial prohibition
be required to prevent most of the ecclesiastical Princes of the
Empire from implicating themselves with the acts of a Council, which, they
were assured, neither would nor could decide fairly between the Pope and
the Emperor. Sicily and Apulia had no representative there, but
the seditious Archbishop of Palermo.
Upon the Monday after St. John the Baptist’s day, a
preliminary consultation was held in the refectory of the abbey of St.
Just. Here the Patriarch of Constantinople, who thought the dangers of the
Latin Church and Empire, in Greece, the most important of the concerns to
be considered, rose to represent their deteriorated and
perilous condition. He stated that out of thirty suffragan
bishops, he had only three remaining; that the Greeks had recovered
everything, to the very gates of the capital; and that the Latin Empire
was tottering on the brink of ruin. Innocent cannot be supposed
indifferent to so great a papal object as the reunion of Greece with the
Roman Catholic Church; but he had another, more personal, for which,
and not for that reunion, he had convoked the Council: he took no notice
of the Patriarch's speech. The English prelates then brought forward their
chief business; to wit, the canonization of Edmund, the
lately deceased Archbishop of Canterbury; and the Pope, seizing the
opportunity, said, that the time, for considering all such matters would
be, when affairs of more importance w ere disposed of.
Taddeo da Suessa then rose, apologized, on the plea of
illness, for the absence of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and in
his name proffered peace and friendship, the restoration of the papal
dominions, with compensation for any casual injuries; demanding, in
return, relief from the sentence of excommunication denounced against
himself and his adherents; and he further pledged the Emperor, when readmitted
into the bosom of the Church, to send succours against the Mongols, wherever
needed, re-establish the Latin Empire of Constantinople, and recover
the Holy Land. Innocent inquired, whether the Envoy had authority to make
such offers. Taddeo affirmed that he had, exhibiting a document to which
was appended the golden bulla, or Imperial seal. The Pope
then evasively exclaimed: “Large and splendid are the Emperor’s offers,
were they ever to be fulfilled! Now that the axe is at the root of the
tree, he would fain delude the Council, gaining time till it shall be
dissolved. Should I concede all he asks, what security have I that his
fickle spirit will not retract? Who shall compel him to keep his
promises, if reluctant?” Almost interrupting the Pope, Taddeo cried: “The
Kings of England and France will be his guarantees, and, if necessary,
compel the fulfilment of his engagements.” The Pope, shaking his head,
rejoined :“And so, when the Emperor breaks his word, as he certainly will,
the Church must attack his guarantees; and instead of one, will have three
enemies, all so powerful that none in Christendom can mate them. I
refuse your guarantees.” With this rejection of the Emperor’s offers,
the preliminary conference ended.
Upon the following Wednesday, the Council was solemnly
opened. The members, assembling in the Church of St. John, arranged themselves
according to their rank; the Emperor Baldwin’s place being at the Pope’s
right hand; when, prior even to the first formal ceremonies,
the solemn tranquillity was disturbed by a dispute relative
to precedency. The Patriarch of Aquileia had caused his seat to be
prepared beside those of the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch,
with whom he naturally enough claimed equal rank. But the title,
although allowed to survive the patriarchate of Aquileia, did so
as an empty title; the real Patriarchs, therefore, ordered his seat
to be overthrown; and, amidst a prodigious tumult, he was forced back into
the second, or episcopal line; which the Pope adjudged to be his proper
station, since he possessed no patriarchal jurisdiction/ This disturbance
allayed, the invocation to the Holy Ghost was chaunted, prayers were
offered up, and the rites, customary upon such occasions, were celebrated.
The Council being now opened and ready to proceed to
business, a long silence ensued, designed to enhance the effect of that
which was to break it. Then the Pope, weeping bitterly, arose, and
delivered an indictment of the Emperor, in the form of a political sermon,
too characteristic of Innocent IV, of papal animosity to Frederic II, and
of the times, to be omitted. He took, for his text, part of the 12th verse
of the 1st chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah: “Is it nothing to you, all
ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my
sorrow”, and thus proceeded: “Even as Christ was transpierced with five
wounds, so am I with five griefs. My first grief, is that the Mongols with
savage cruelty devastate Christian lands; my second, that the Greeks
scorn the bosom of their mother Church, ay, even attacking her as a
stepmother; my third, that heresy is gaining the upper hand, especially in
the Lombard cities, and manifold abuses are everywhere springing up; my
fourth, that the Godless brood of Kharizmia occupy the Holy Land, extirpating
Christians and Christianity in Christianity's birthplace; my fifth and
last grief relates to the Emperor. He, the Head of all temporal power, the
bounden protector and champion of the Church, is become her
fiercest adversary, and the avowed enemy of all her servants. The
Church has ever desired peace; has ever been ready to make compensation,
if, which seems impossible, she should chance to have wronged any one; but
Frederic has hardened his heart, and rushed from sin to sin. He
can be proved a perjured traitor, a violator of treaties, a sacrilegious
robber of churches, a defiler of the sanctuary, a heretic. He took the
oath of allegiance to Innocent III, for Apulia and Sicily promised a
yearly tribute, confirmed the right of the Holy See to Ancona,
Ravenna, Spoleto, and other places; he swore faithfully to protect Honorious
III; at his reconciliation with Gregory IX, he swore to obey the commands of
the Church, not to harm her partisans, or infringe her liberty. The very
last year, through his plenipotentiaries, he renewed all those
promises; but which of all these solemnly sanctioned
documents” (holding up a number of parchments) “has he ever observed? What
treaty of peace has he not' broken? What oath has he sworn and not been
perjured? Violently he seizes upon Church domains and Church treasures;
rapaciously he keeps bishoprics and rectories vacant, to the perdition of
souls; ecclesiastics he taxes and drags before lay tribunals; church
vassals he compels to do him homage, and he encroaches upon the rights of
the military Orders, those champions of Christendom. Prelates,
who, in dutiful obedience to a papal command, were hastening to form
a Council and deliberate upon momentous questions, relative to concerns the
most sacred, he captured, and leaves to pine in wretched dungeons. Nay,
the Popes themselves have not escaped his calumnies, insults,
and persecutions. In defiance of his excommunication, he causes the
divine rites to be celebrated in his presence, boldly asserting, contrary
to the indisputable word of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the successor of
the Apostle Peter has no power to bind or to loose. Yet has the
Church, consonantly to her conciliatory nature and functions,
offered to this prince, rather to this sacrilegious polluter of
the sanctuary, to show him all the grace and lenity that may consist
with God’s honour and her own, requiring only the instant release of the
imprisoned prelates; when she will mercifully agree to a compromise upon
all other points, or submit them to the judgment of impartial spiritual
and temporal princes. But the more is spontaneously offered to the Emperor, the
higher rise his usurping demands, and none can mistake his ultimate
object, to wit, to eradicate the Church, and, with her, all
worship of God from the earth, in order that he alone, a
detestable idol, may be adored by a miserable and forlorn
generation. In his realms he founds, not holy cloisters, but Mohammedan
towns. To the disgrace and ruin of Christianity, he gives the Holy Land to
a Mohammedan, as is proved by his offer to recover it. He commits his
Christian wife to the custody of Mohammedan eunuchs; gives
his daughter in marriage to an excommunicated heretic [Vatazes],
follows Mohammedan manners and customs, and is not ashamed, he, the
temporal Head of Christendom, of illicit connexions with Mohammedan
harlots.”
As the Pope resumed his seat, Taddeo rose to reply;
but to accusations, as vague as they were bitter, he could make only vague
answers. He denied the charges generally; asserted that innocent actions had
been misrepresented and distorted into criminality; that the Pope, not the
Emperor, had been the violator of treaties; that conventions with Mohammedans
were customary in Palestine, and had been approved by Popes; that
Mohammedan maidens had attended the court for no unchaste
purpose, but solely on account of their skill in feminine arts, such
as dancing, embroidery, &c., and that even these artists had been
dismissed, when found to give umbrage to the austere morality of his
Holiness. He ended by demanding time, for the Emperor either to send
definite answers to the charges, or to visit Lyons and vindicate himself
in person. This last proposal Innocent scarcely suffered the speaker to
enunciate, interrupting him with the passionate exclamation: “God forefend
! I dread the snares I have hardly escaped. If he comes, I go!
I would not yet be a martyr, nor even immured in a dungeon.”
Some wrangling between creatures of the Pope’s and the
Imperial Ambassador ensued. A fugitive Sicilian prelate accused the
Emperor both of licentiousness, and of plundering for the purpose of
impoverishing the Church; but was silenced by Taddeo’s statement, that the
accuser had fled his country, a convicted traitor. To a
Spaniard, fiercely denouncing the capture of the intended Fathers of
the Council, he answered, that those prelates bad proved themselves
personal enemies of the Emperor, by refusing, upon their way to join an
assembly almost avowedly hostile to him, to hear his explanatory
vindication of his conduct; and yet had the Emperor after a brief
captivity, released all except his virulent enemy, the Cardinal-Bishop of
Palestrina, who, to his face, had anew and repeatedly anathematized him, and a
very few of the prelates, who had displayed similar insolence and acrimony. (The
Pope rejected Taddeo’s pleas, and pronounced, that, for the seizure of the
members of a Council, and innumerable other crimes, the Emperor deserved to
be deposed.
These words roused the Ambassadors of England and of
France; the first, apprehending that the proposed dethronement of the Emperor,
must imply the degradation of the children of the English princess,
Empress Isabel; the second, simply resenting the Pope’s assumption of
a power, alike dangerous and deteriorating to temporal sovereignty.
They joined Taddeo and his colleagues in pleading for, at the least, such
a delay, as might allow the Emperor time to appear in person, if he chose
so to do, or to prepare and send a specific answer. The devoted partisans
of Innocent opposed even this modest demand; but the crafty pontiff knew
better how to effect his purpose, whilst throwing a false hue of moderation
over his real violence. He granted a delay of twelve days, which, in
that unexpeditious age, barely sufficed to convey information of the papal
charges and purposes across the Alps, to Turin, and bring back, what might
be termed, an extemporaneous answer; but not to allow time, either
for the deliberation indispensable upon an occasion so momentous, or for
an Emperor’s journey in the style befitting his station.
Gualtiero di Ocra, Grand-Chancellor of Sicily, one of
the Imperial embassy, hastened to Turin, with his report of what had
occurred; and the Emperor’s Council was much divided upon the question,
whether he should in person repair to Lyons, or merely despatch
new envoys thither, fully instructed to clear him of the
imputed offences. Frederic himself inclined to the first course,
and had even given orders for his journey; but he was dissuaded by
representations, that his personal appearance might be construed as an
actual acknowledgment of authority in a Church Council to try and sentence
him, whilst a mission to vindicate his conduct would less
imply subjection. This consideration was decisive. To the original
embassy, Frederic added Heinrich von Hohenlohe, the recently elected
Grand-Master of the Teutonic Order, whom the critical state of his affairs
had called to his side, the Bishop of Freising, and Pietro delle Vigne,
giving them full powers to speak, treat, and conclude for him. But
even this brief deliberation had, as the Pope, when so graciously granting
time, had confidently anticipated, consumed more than the allotted hours; at
the close of the twelfth day, the new envoys, bearing the Emperor’s
answer, had not appeared.
Innocent, meanwhile, turned this interval to good
account, in personal intercourse with all the prelates, not already blindly
devoted to him. By dilating upon Frederic’s faults, and giving the worst colour
to his every act, by working upon their attachment to the Church,
and awakening fear for her interests and her usefulness, should any
temporal supremacy be established over her, as well as upon their more
selfish feelings, he convinced numbers that the power of deposing monarchs
ought to be, and therefore was, vested in the Pope and Council
conjointly. He skilfully excited the ambition of some Cardinals to
exercise such power, by encouraging them to look forward to a prospect of
the papacy, stimulated the vanity of the more vulgar-minded, by
appropriating visible, palpable ensigns to their high station, as Princes
of the Church—the red hat and stockings distinguishing Cardinals, are said
to have been first assigned to their dignity, at this Council. One
way or another the Pope was so successful, that upon the 17th of
July, when the twelve days expired, he felt little doubt of the Council's
being ready to assume, and exercise as he should dictate, the right of
deposing sovereigns.
Vainly did Taddeo represent the impossibility of
receiving a deliberate answer from Turin in the short space of time allowed,
and implore a further delay of three days, within which, he was confident,
either the Emperor himself or an Imperial messenger would reach Lyons. Innocent
would not resign the advantage he derived from the non-appearance of
either the Emperor or his specific answer to the charges. Inexorably he
proceeded to open the third session; but did so in appearance pacifically,
and as if solely for the arrangement of affairs, untroubled
by clashing interests. He proposed regulations touching the recovery
and defence of the Holy Land, and touching the celebration of the festival
of Our Lady’s Nativity. When these were agreed to, he ordered documents
respecting the territorial possessions of the Holy See, to be laid
before the Fathers of the Church, for their signature. Against this
act, which was the actual prejudication of one of the questions in dispute
betwixt the Pope and the Emperor, by ratifying all the contested papal
pretensions, relative to the Matildan heritage, Taddeo instantly and
strongly protested. Innocent, disregarding this protest, repeated his
call upon the prelates to sign. They obeyed; and as they signed, Taddeo,
with a loud voice exclaimed: “I appeal from this Council, at which so many
prelates, so many lay embassies, are wanting, to a future, more
truly Ecumenic, and more independent Council. I appeal from Pope
Innocent, the inveterate enemy of my Lord the Emperor, to a future,
milder, and more Christianly-tempered Pope.”
Innocent replied: “All prelates have been summoned,
and of those wanting most are kept away by Frederic’s tyranny. Too long,
and not without manifold inconveniences and sacrifices, have Patriarchs,
Archbishops, Bishops, Princes, and princely Ambassadors, already waited
and waited in vain, for his humble submission. No longer shall his
arrogance, wickedness, and deceit, elude their merited punishment.”
At this juncture, the Pope, while preparing to
pronounce the sentence, was unexpectedly interrupted: William of Poweric, one
of the English envoys, rose, and announcing himself as the plenipotentiary
of the English nation, as well as of the English King, laid
before the Council the complaints of the clergy, nobility, and people
of England. These complaints related to the arbitrary and oppressive conduct of
the Legate Martin, and the countless swarms of Italians, who, ignorant of
the English language, as of English customs and usages, were intruded
by Innocent into the various benefices of the English Church, carrying off
annually upwards of 60,000 lbs. of silver from the impoverished country.
The complainants, he said, declared the irrevocable resolution of the
whole nation, with the single exception, perhaps, of the King—a too
submissive son of the Church I—noi longer to endure such wrongs; but,
also, their reliance upon the paternal clemency of his Holiness, for
the redress of those wrongs, by which he would knit all England in
bonds of gratitude to himself.
A long silence followed this speech. Then Innocent,
observing that the matters thus brought forward were of a kind to require
much and leisurely consideration, despite the Englishman’s urgency,
deferred that consideration to a future session, and returned to bis
former topic, his denunciation of the Emperor. He now, beginning
with an assumed mildness that gradually changed into virulence, again
rehearsed the previously enumerated charges against the Emperor, with the
addition of having employed an assassin to murder the late Duke of
Bavaria; concluding as follows: “For these, and many other
abominable, execrable crimes and outrages, we, after diligent
inquiry and mature deliberation with our brothers the Cardinals and
the holy assembly of the Church here present, in virtue of the authority
conferred by our Lord Jesus Christ upon St. Peter and his successors,
pronounce that this prince, who has shown himself unworthy of the
Empire and of his kingdoms, as of all dignities and honours, and who
for his sins is already rejected by God [meaning excommunicated], is
deprived of, and deposed from, all these, his rightfully forfeited
dignities and honours. All persons, bound or pledged to him by oath of
allegiance or otherwise, we release and free from the bonds of
such oaths and duties; and, in the fulness of our apostolic power,
distinctly and positively command, that no one henceforward obey him as
Emperor or King. Whoever, slighting or evading this command, shall obey,
or, either by act or word, assist him, shall thereby incur
excommunication. In Germany, let those Princes, in whom is vested the
right of election, forthwith elect a new king. For the Sicilian realms,
we, with the assistance of our brothers the Cardinals, will provide.”
This violent, and, in the details, unprecedented,
proceeding of the Pope’s, appears, notwithstanding his preparatory labours, to
have taken the great majority of the Council by surprise, and to have shocked
and revolted the feelings even of those members whom he had won to his side,
filling them with alarm and regret. But no idea of resistance was thereby
awakened; even the Imperial Envoys only beat their breasts, lamenting over
the harsh and unjust treatment of their sovereign, and the
probable consequences. To these emotions Taddeo gave
audible utterance, ejaculating,“ Oh day of wrath, of calamity,
of woe! Now will the heretics rejoice, the Kharizmians tyrannize over
the Holy Land, the horde of Mongols overwhelm Europe!" Unheeding the
general consternation, the Pope sternly resumed: “My part I have done:
the rest God will direct according to His holy will."
Hereupon he began the Te Deum, and all who thought with
him joined in chaunting that hymn of exultation and thanksgiving; which
assuredly, could, under no aspect of the transaction, be other than most
unseasonable and indecent. Even had the Emperor been as criminal as Innocent depicted
him, the guilt and punishment of a Christian Sovereign should have been
matter of regret and lamentation, not of rejoicing. When the chaunt ceased,
another solemn pause ensued. Then, the Pope and the prelates flung lighted
torches upon the ground, to extinguish by trampling upon them; in token
that thus were the Emperor’s earthly success and splendour extinguished.
This act and joining in the Te Deum were the whole share
taken by the Council in deposing the Emperor; and the haughty Pope
would, very probably, have considered any more active participation, an
encroachment upon his prerogative.
If the personal ill-will to Frederic II—which Innocent
IV appears to have inherited from Gregory IX— prompted this assumption of power
to depose monarchs, yet was its exercise not confined to his case. Some
nobles and prelates of Portugal laid before the Council complaints of
misgovernment by their King, Sancho II; whereupon the Pope—uninfluenced
upon this occasion by preconceived, or official prejudice, but glad, perhaps,
of an opportunity to make manifest similar implacable severity, and the
same assumption of power, where no suspicion of personal feelings could
exist,—without any investigation of the truth or falsehood of these
complaints, at once, as though undisputed and absolute master of Europe,
pronounced the reigning monarch deposed, and the kingdom of Portugal
transferred to his brother, the Infante Don Alfonso. In
like manner, he relieved the kingdom of Hungary from the vassalage to the
Empire, always claimed by the emperors, and recently, as the price of
assistance against the Mongols, offered by Bela.
With regard to the business, for which professedly the
Council had been convoked, i.e. the support of the
Latin Empire of Constantinople, the recovery of the Holy Land, and
the defence of Europe against the Mongols, this was quickly despatched
when its real purpose, concurrence in the deposal of Frederic by the Pope,
was accomplished. To Baldwin, in order to afford him the means of
enlisting mercenaries for the support of his tottering throne,
was assigned half a year’s income of every Canon absent, without valid
cause, from his Cathedral. For the recovery of the Holy Land, the Council
decreed, that, during the next four years, no war should be waged, no
tournament held, throughout Europe; but all men’s energies be exclusively
devoted to the organization of a Crusade for this great object, towards
which, the Pope and Cardinals should, during those years, contribute a
tenth of their respective incomes, and all other ecclesiastics, a
twentieth of theirs. Pilgrims were forbidden to visit Palestine until the
Crusade, which they were directed to join, should be ready. With regard to
the Mongols, the danger of Europe appeared to be diminishing; and, though
the anti-Mongol Crusade, the promise of which had converted the
Prince of Halitsh, was virtually proclaimed, by assuring to
the defenders of Europe against the Golden Horde, all the indulgences
granted to defenders of the Holy Land, it was not inforced as an
imperative duty; and Daniel erelong recanted his desertion of the Greek
Communion. This relapse into schism, when it, somewhat later,
occurred, Innocent endeavoured to compensate, by sending
the Father-Guardian of the Minorites, with some of his friars, to
convert Vatazes to the Roman Catholic Church—of course, a fruitless
mission.
When the extraordinary proceedings of the Council,
sanctioning the refusal to wait for his answer, the renewal of his
excommunication, and his deposal, were reported to the Emperor, they
called forth the burst of anger to be expected. But the mode in which that
anger expressed itself is remarkable, as showing, even if the speech
ascribed to Frederic be the recording chronicler’s invention,
the immense, the, to modern apprehension inconceivable,
value, attached, in early ages, to symbols. The enlightened Frederic is
reported to have exclaimed: “Me, have the Pope and his Council deposed!
Me, have they despoiled of my crowns! Bring me my crowns ! Let me see if
they be lost!” His several crowns were immediately produced; when,
snatching one, he placed it on his head, and in raised accents resumed: “My crowns
I still have, and neither Pope nor Council shall rob me of them without a
sanguinary struggle! What impudently arrogant presumption, to think with words,
empty as they are wantonly arbitrary, to hurl me, whose equal
none amongst the princes of the earth presumes to call himself, from
the pinnacle of Imperial sovereignty! But I ought to thank the Pope
for thus proving himself as unjust a judge as he is a bitter enemy; and
so, releasing me from the restraint imposed by veneration for his sacred
office, leaving me at full liberty to hate, and wage war against him.”
Both Pope and Emperor now appealed, as usual, to the
kings and princes of Christendom, if indeed the papal announcement of an
act of authority to be passively received, may be so termed; for such was
Innocent’s communication to them. The simultaneous address of
the Emperor, was a sort of protest against the Pope’s assumption of power
to which he was not entitled, and against the contempt of all established
and recognised forms of law, with which the Council, neither examining
competent witnesses, nor hearing his justification, and treating
imputations that he denied, and could have disproved, as admitted and
notorious facts, had condemned and sentenced him. He added a warning to all
princes, that, if such usurpation were tolerated, all, in their turn,
must suffer. To this protest Innocent replied in an encyclic epistle,
some passages of which must be translated to exemplify the extravagant
pretensions of a pope, whose aspirations to despotic authority far
transcend those of any of his predecessors; and are, likewise, far more
practical. In one place he says: “The Emperor denies that all things, all
persons, are subject to the Holy See; as if he, who shall hereafter judge
the angels of Heaven, should not be entitled to judge earthly princes. Even
in the Old Testament priests depose unworthy kings; how much more is
the Vicegerent of Christ authorized to deal with him, who, having
heretically abandoned the Church of Christ, is self-doomed to Hell. The
assertion that Constantine first invested the Roman See with temporal
power, is erroneous; this having been naturally and unconditionally
conferred upon the first occupant of that See, by Christ himself, the true
King and Priest, of the order of Melchisedech. Christ founded not merely a
pontifical, but also a regal sovereignty, and gave, to St. Peter and
his successors, power over the realms of earth and of Heaven, as is
sufficiently indicated by the plurality of the keys?’ In another place is
found: “The elective kingdom of Germany is united to the Empire, which latter
dignity the Pope transferred, as a fief or beneficium from
the East to the West. No one disputes the Pope’s right to crown
the elected King, Emperor; and he, by receiving the Imperial crown
from the Pope’s hand, binds himself, as antiquity teaches and time present
confirms, in the bonds of allegiance and subjection to the Pope.” It
may here be worthwhile to mention, in proof of the absolute novelty of
such pretensions, that St. Bernard— whose doctrine the Church, by his
canonization, clearly recognised as hers,—not only, as may be
remembered, urged Lothar not to admit the Pope’s claim to the suzerainty
of Sicily, but actually denied all temporal authority whatever to the Pope, as
completely as Arnold of Brescia himself. In a treatise dedicated to Pope
Eugenius III, he thus addresses him: “ Try, as a temporal ruler, to be the
successor of the Apostle, or, as the successor of the Apostle, to exercise
temporal authority, and you fail. Grasping at both loses both.” To return
from the Saint to the Pope: after the above extracts from Innocent’s
address to the sovereigns of Europe, can his assertion, that the deposed
Emperor had had the benefit of every law, form, &c.; since, whenever
his guilt had been discussed in the Pope’s Council, some of the Cardinals
had been directed to plead his cause; which (without
his instructions) they, of course, did much better than his own ambassadors,
with them, or he himself, could have done, be worth adding?
Of the sovereigns of Europe thus addressed, only the
Kings of England and France appear to have concerned themselves about the
dissensions between Pope and Emperor. Or rather only the last, for Innocent so
wantonly exasperated England, that Henry’s interference
presently merged in a separate short-lived quarrel with the See
of Rome. By alternate threats and promises—although refusing formally
to redress the evils complained of, he solemnly assured the Envoys that
such evils should not recur—he had cajoled the English prelates into
affixing their signatures both to the excommunication of their liege Lord’s
brother-in-law, and to the document by which King John had promised
tribute. But no sooner had they departed upon their return home, than he
not only broke these engagements, persevering in every abuse
against which they had protested, but sent a requisition to
every English prelate, to furnish him, vassal-like, troops for
his war against the Emperor. Again, King, nobility, and clergy,
jointly and separately, respectfully represented their wrongs to the Pope,
soliciting redress. The only answer, if answer it can be called, to their
remonstrating petitions, was a letter to a Cistertian Abbot,
commanding him directly, to send to his Holiness, a supply of the
beautiful gold ornamental trimming that he had noticed upon the garments
of the English ecclesiastics—probably the gold lace before mentioned as a
celebrated English manufacture, or the gold wrought robes, that had so
dazzled the Normans and French. This was followed, erelong, by a demand
for the property of all ecclesiastics dying intestate, and for a sum of
6000 marks within the month. Even the feeble-minded Henry now shared the
general indignation; and Innocent, enraged at such resistance to his
will, despite the remonstrances of the Cardinals against alienating, at so
critical a juncture, the only really obedient country, was about to lay
England under an interdict, when Henry took fright, and averted the evil
by abandoning the cause of his subjects, with that of his
Imperial brother-in-law.
Upon the unhesitating acceptance of the Council's
decrees by the devout Lewis IX, Innocent had fully relied, notwithstanding
the monarch's previous rejection of the pope-offered Empire, for his
brother, the Comte d’Artois. And well might he so rely, the royal piety
being such, as seemed incompatible with resistance to the Head of
the Church; whilst Innocent himself, fearing to provoke additional
hostility, had, like Gregory IX, sedulously avoided irritating kingly susceptibility,
by any interference with his church-patronage. Neither Pope had, indeed,
sanctioned the claim of right, but they had connived at his nominations. The
excessive devotion of Lewis gives so much weight to the favourable view,
which he will be found to have taken of Frederic’s conduct upon this
occasion, and to his disapprobation of Innocent's, that it must be
demonstrated by an instance or two.
St. Lewis did not quite emulate St. Elizabeth in her
exaggeration of duties inculcated by Christianity, or by Romanism, but, at a
distance, he trod in her footsteps. His submission to the penances imposed by
his confessor went far beyond fasting at his command, even to allowing
himself to be by him scourged; ay, and scourged so severely, that, upon
the death of one confessor, amongst the sins he revealed to the successor,
is said to have been his great dislike of the pain he suffered under the
operation. He performed in person many of those services in
the tendance of the sick, in which she had delighted; and
so scrupulously went through the regular Passion-week ceremony of washing
the feet of twelve poor men, that, upon occasion of a beggar, whose pedal
ablution had been committed to one of his courtier-associates in the
office, complaining that, in his case, the purification of
the digital interstices had been omitted, the King with his own royal
fingers made good the neglect of his less self-sacrificing partner. Again, he
was, as a penance, making a sort of pilgrimage, barefoot, to divers
churches, when a leper, from the opposite side of a very muddy street
or road, solicited alms of him. The established mode of giving to those
wretched sufferers, personally, from the supposed infectious nature of
their malady, as much abhorred as dreaded, was to fling down money upon
the ground, which they were not even to pick up until the donor should
be at a safe distance. But Lewis waded through the mire across the
street, and kissed the leper’s hand, in which he placed the money.
Could such piety have been susceptible of increase, in
a man of reasonably good understanding, it must at this moment have sprung
up from his firm belief that, recently, in the last agonies of a deadly
malady, even whilst his attendants were disputing whether life were or
were not extinct, he had been miraculously cured, either by contact
with the relics of St. Denis, or by mentally vowing a Crusade, to utter which
vow was the first use he made of his restored speech. And yet this
monarch— who moreover nourished a bigot’s antipathy to the troubadours,
musicians, &c., forming the delight of Frederic and his court, and who
hardly seems to have dared dispute the Pope’s abstract right to depose
guilty sovereigns—felt that Innocent had acted harshly, and unreasonably,
if not guilty of actual injustice, towards Frederic; and he zealously
endeavoured to soften the acrimonious pontiff. Might not this simple fact
be almost accepted as the Emperor’s acquittal—not assuredly of all faults;
one, that he unfortunately shared with many great men, viz., levity, at
least, with respect to women, being undeniable; but— of the heavy charges
brought against him by Gregory IX and Innocent IV ?
The Emperor despatched Pietro delle Vigne, with other
envoys, of higher birth if of inferior abilities, to the French Court, to
confirm and improve the King’s favourable disposition. They were instructed to
represent strongly the necessity of resisting such papal attacks upon
monarchs; and to implore Lewis, instead of permitting a
Crusade against a Christian sovereign instead of against misbelievers, to
be preached in France, to persuade the Pope to revoke his excommunication
of the Emperor. They were further instructed to offer the royal Crusader,
even under existing circumstances, all the assistance in
ships, recruits, and provisions, at the Emperor’s disposal—and few
single fleets could now compete with the Sicilian— assuring him at the
same time, that, could he obtain the desired revocation, the Emperor would
either again take the Cross himself, or send his son, the King of
the Romans, with a large army to assist him in the recovery of the
Holy Land.
The zealous Crusader neither lost a moment, nor
neglected any means at his command, to achieve, if possible, this important and
genuinely Christian object. He hastened, about the end of November, to visit
the Pope at Cluny, whither the Holy Father had removed from Lyons.
And it may be stated, as illustrating the size and magnificence, already
mentioned, of this mother Abbey of the Order, that the Pope, being there
domiciliated with his whole papal Court, then composed of twelve
cardinals, two patriarchs, three archbishops, fifteen bishops,
with their several trains, besides mitred abbots and others of less
dignity, received the King of France with his Court—including those of the
two Queens, his mother and his wife, and his brothers and sisters with
their attendants—Baldwin of Constantinople and the Infantes of
Castile and Aragon with their several trains, besides individual nobles,
knights, and ecclesiastics. And all these persons, the Abbot of Abbots of Cluny
is averred to have lodged, without disturbing a single monk,
or giving up a single room or cell appropriated to conventual use.
During seven days, the pious King laboured, in private interviews, to
assuage innocent’s enmity to a prince, whom he had once professed to love,
and who was disposed to render such services to the great cause of
Christendom. But Innocent was immovably bent upon the destruction, or
at least the dethronement, of the Swabian dynasty; and the utmost, that
Lewis could wring from him, was the adjourning of his final decision until
Easter; against which epoch, Lewis would endeavour to obtain yet larger
concessions from the Emperor.
At Easter, the French King again visited the Pope,
authorized to make every concession consistent with the rights of the
Empire, and the honour of the Emperor. Amongst others, to offer Frederic’s
resignation of the whole of his European dominions to his son, Conrad, in
order to spend the remainder of his life in warring with the Mohammedans
for his kingdom of Jerusalem. (But no concession, at least none that Lewis
deemed it fitting to ask of a Sovereign—and, indeed, what greater could he
ask?—allayed the rancour of the Pope, who now declared that Frederic had
too often broken his promises to Gregory IX and to himself, ever again to
be believed; and that never, under
any circumstances, would he cancel the excommunication of either father or son,
Conrad being at this time a sinner hardened by about seventeen winters.
Lewis, notwithstanding his veneration for the
successor of St. Peter, was shocked at such unchristian implacability in the
self-entitled, and generally-acknowledged, vicegerent of Him, who
redeemed mankind with his own blood. His less bigoted great vassals were
yet more disgusted; their perceptions of the Pope’s injustice and
arrogance being quickened by their having personal grievances—if the
King had not—of which to complain. Innocent had not been as forbearing with
respect to their rights of church patronage, as he had in regard to the
monarch’s, but had rather superseded than encroached upon them; and
a number of the most aggrieved had confederated for the maintenance
of these rights. Headed by the Dukes of Burgundy and of Britany, and the
Earls of Angouleme and St. Pol, they now announced their determination
to adopt, in their own principalities and fiefs, the Sicilian laws
relative to clerical encroachment and assumption of privileges; solemnly
swearing to stand by each other, with sword and purse.
But Innocent IV, as sagacious and crafty as he was
violent, found means to disperse the threatening storm. He cajoled the
French King, he caressed and flattered him, granting him, individually,
every immunity and privilege in ecclesiastical affairs, that he so
fiercely denied to the Emperor, or that so bigoted a Papist could desire.
The nobles he more openly bribed, dealing with them separately, granting
indulgences and church fiefs, even giving money to such as were under pecuniary
embarrassments. One by one they dropped off, till the confederation
ceased to exist. The King, though he never condemned, or took part
against, the Emperor, tacitly abandoned his cause, devoting himself
exclusively to preparations for his Crusade.
Throughout the dominions of the Emperor, the effect,
wrought by the audacious sentence pronounced against him and the King of
the Romans, appears to have varied, nearly according to the interests of
the parties concerned. In Germany, the deposal of the sovereign, ia virtue
of the renewed excommunication, by a Council, calling
itself (Ecumenic, though hardly containing any prelate of the Empire,
and promulgated by an alien—the Italian Bishop of Ferrara was the Legate
appointed for this purpose— appears to have exasperated almost all the lay
princes, as an impudent attempt to usurp their rights. But, on
the other hand, the loyalty of those, to whom the attainment of the
office conferring such despotic power was open, to wit, the spiritual
princes, was evidently shaken.
In the Sicilies, the people, happy and prosperous
under Fredericks equal administration of the just laws he had published,
seem to have troubled themselves but little, about the Pope’s endeavours
to deprive them of their sovereign. The chief effect there was, that the
Emperor, as before intimated, discarded the forbearance he had
hitherto observed towards ecclesiastics. He had, in some measure, connived
at—rather repressing than denying—their claim to exemption from taxation
and lay jurisdiction; he now placed them, in those respects, upon a
footing more nearly approaching to equality with the laity. He
caused friars, monks, and even prelates, to be tried—conformably to his
code—by the ordinary tribunals, when accused of treason; and, when
convicted, to be either executed or banished, according to the degree of
their criminality; for prelates, deprivation of their sees and exile were
the common doom. He denounced the penalties of confiscation and exile,
against whomsoever should be found publishing the papal sentence of
excommunication and deposal, in his realms. He required the taking of a
new oath of allegiance to himself and his son, and pledged his word never
to make peace with the Pope, without securing the safety of his loyal
clerical subjects.
In northern and central Italy, the sentences of
excommunication and deposal were received, as might be expected, with
acclamations by one party, with indignation by the other. Intelligence of a
treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, concluded between the Pope
and the Lombard League, binding both parties not to treat for a separate
peace with him, had reached the Emperor simultaneously with those sentences. He
did not give the allies time to begin hostilities; but, falling back upon Pavia,
summoned the Ghibelines around him, gathered together the forces of
Bergamo, Cremona, Lodi, Parma, and Reggio, in addition to those of Pavia,
divided them into two separate armies, with one of which he fell upon
the Milanese territory from the south-west, whilst Enzio led the
other across the Adda, to invade it from the east. Milan, if somewhat
disconcerted by this twofold attack, was so but for the moment. She was
then in the fresh vigour of despotism, grafted upon democracy. The
League at large was unusually confident, having, in addition to
its flatteringly important alliance with the Pope, established a good
understanding, fast ripening into confederacy, with some German
malcontents: whilst any misgivings, that might chance to arise, were speedily
dispersed by the vehement exhortations of Cardinal Gregorio di
Montelonga; whom, as though to justify Frederic’s detention of
his bitter enemies, Innocent had again sent to Lombardy, to stimulate
the Guelph spirit of ambition commonly there prevalent.
The autumn was consumed in much fighting, without any
useful result. In one of these indecisive actions, Enzio, too eagerly
pursuing the defeated and fugitive Lombards, was made prisoner by the
Milanese, and rescued by the men of Reggio and Parma. At least, this
is the generally credited account of the occurrence, and that most
consonant with subsequent events; although some, bitterly Guelph, writers
have asserted, that he obtained his liberty by pledging the Emperor, as well
as himself, never again to set foot on Milanese territory. Had he
done so, the breach of his pledged faith would assuredly have been
brought forward, as a plea for his subsequent hard doom.
Amidst these hostilities, Frederic was informed by the
Earl of Savoy, that he had captured the Venetian members of the hostile
Council, as they crossed his dominions upon their way home. The Emperor
thanked the Earl for this mark of attachment, but requested him to dismiss
his prisoners. The desire was obeyed; and the Venetians visited the
Imperial camp, to express both their gratitude for their release, and
their disapprobation of the proceedings of the Pope and Council: when a
conversation is reported to have taken place, showing something of the
usual mediaeval notions relative to political economy, intermingled with
ideas considerably in advance of the age. The Emperor is said, after
complaining of Venice for having, at least tacitly, concurred in those
proceedings of the Pope and Council, which they now condemned, to have
remarked, that peace was as much the interest of that commercial republic,
as of his own dominions, ending in these words: “I know that Venice
derives great profit from her trade with my kingdoms, but I am quite aware
that my subjects profit equally thereby; and, if you are content with what
is reasonable, and advantageous to both parties, I am ready to treat for
peace.” One of the deputation, Canari, frankly acknowledged, that trade with
the Emperor’s realms was very beneficial to Venice; when his
colleague Renier, of a less advanced school of statesmanship, endeavoured, by
winks and signs, to check a degree of candour, that he deemed impolitic.
Neither the action nor the motive escaped Frederic, who,
laughing, said: “Never mind; he tells me nothing that I do
not already know.” And a commercial treaty, upon equal terms, was
concluded.
CHAPTER XIV.
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